Oddball Films presents Learn your Lesson from the '60s - A Groovy Shockucation, the 32nd in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, we're heading back half a century to learn all about sex, drugs and talking cars from the decade of experimentation: the 1960s. "Blast off to Kicksville" in the howlingly-funny drug scare film Narcotics: Pit of Despair (1967). A rabbi, a priest and a psychologist talk about sexual development, masturbation, nocturnal emissions and more squeamish topics in Parent to Child About Sex (1965). Behold the wild go-go frenzy of the psychedelically animated anti-smoking film The Drag (1965). Mike Miller is a good Mormon Boy, but will he be lured by fast cars and wild women in the hilarious Measure of a Man (1962) from Mormon-mental hygiene pioneer Wetzel Whitaker. Little Jimmy nearly gets his by a car and then dreams of talking cars with creepy eyeballs that blast him on his safety knowledge in the mind-boggling The Talking Car (1969). Three groovy young girls and their dad get a lesson in over-shopping in Consumer Education: Budgeting (1968). Plus, nightmare musical cartoon Sniffy Escapes Poisoning (1965) and an excerpt of The Hippie Temptation (1969). Get here early to see when Sonny Bono gets high (pre-taping) and dons a gold lamé pajama set to tell you all about Marijuana (1968). Everything screened on 16mm film from the archive.
Date: Friday, November 20th, 2015 at 8:00pm
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com
The Drag (Color, 1965)
Produced for the Canadian Department of Health and Welfare this jaw-dropping film montage depicts the difficulty of breaking the tobacco habit in a child-adulthood go-go frenzy of wild animation by Italian animator Carlos Marchiori. The story depicts the case history of a chain smoker-satirically told on a psychiatrist's couch, with the patient's recollections--illustrating the psychology of the smoking habit and the part that cigarette advertising plays in the addiction. With hopping music and brilliant kaleidoscopic montages.
Parent to Child about Sex (Color, 1965, excerpt)
A rabbi, a priest, and a psychologist want you to talk to your child about sex! No, it's not a raunchy joke, it's the basis of this Mad Men-styled sex- education short. Frank discussions amongst the panel on topics like wet dreams and menstruation give way to melodramatizations of the kind of sex-education every pubescent child needs.
Measure of a Man (Color, 1962)
Nobody does a drinking and driving scare film quite like the Mormons! Mike Miller is a good boy with a thoughtful and anxious mother who is none too pleased that he's going out driving with bad boys Hal and Blaine. They love "wild" girls, fast cars and drinking beer; and everywhere they go, crazy New Orleans jazz underscores their every move. Will Mike be able to hold his own with their wild ways, even turn them around to his square way of thinking or will he be pressured into drinking and necking the night away? The interior monologues will leave you speechless with gems like "I wonder how come mothers know so much" and "I don't know much about wild girls... might be educational, though." Directed by Mormon-educational film pioneer Wetzel Whitaker, who worked as an animator for Di$ney for 20 years before becoming the director of the BYU Motion Picture Studio.
Sniffy Escapes Poisoning (Color, 1965)
Absolutely twisted animation featuring a troll-like little boy with a massive head who drags his sick dog Sniffy to the medicine cabinet. Once opened, the pills and syrups begin to sing and dance as they cheerfully tell the little boy to KEEP HIS GRUBBY LITTLE PAWS OFF or risk a painful overdose and death.
The Hippie Temptation (Color, 1967, excerpt)
Marijuana (Color, 1968)
Sonny Bono graces the silver screen in gold lamé to set the facts straight about grass; that he appears utterly stoned himself should not denigrate his message one bit. He systematically counters all the usual arguments in favor of the evil weed (hilariously rattled off one by one by a group of teenagers being arrested).
Words of wisdom in stoner monotone: “Unlike alcohol, when you take too much at one time, you don’t pass out. You more than likely run the risk of an unpredictable – and unpleasant – bummer”.
Curator’s Biography
About Oddball Films
Oddball films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.